WeissKreuz After Glow 1 Ashes
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: Between the end of Gluhen episode 13 and the beginning of Weiss Side B Krypton Brand. Yohji, Aya, Schuldig. Mere hints at shonen ai, but gives away the fate of the Weiss boys and the men of Schwarz. Happy ever after, anyone?


**After Glow **

(Set after the last episode of Gluhen. Gluhen with u-umlaut means _'the glow'_ or _'to glow'_ in German. _Glowing_ would be _gluhen**d**_. Trust me, it's my mother tongue.)

This is my version of the time between Gluhen and Weiss Side B/Krypton Brand. Mere hints at shonen-ai, but it gives away the fate of the Weiss boys and the Schwarz men, so if you don't want to know yet, don't read.

See also author's note below. I am grateful for any reviews. Cheers.

**xxx **

Of course Aya was not angry.

He had no right to be angry with his employer – whether he spent his time waiting here or not, he would be paid for the job at hand, and Mamoru, as Omi preferred to be called now, was a busy man these days.

How things had changed since they first came together in the old Koneko...

Walking down the rather ratty street that was cluttered with cheap sweet stalls and small cafes, he stopped by one of the kiosks to buy a packet of mochi and a newspaper to while away the time. Mamoru had postponed their meeting. No, we have to talk this through before you plunge into something, he had told Aya over the phone, and I hope you have recovered well...

Polite as always. Odd enough though that he had not sent one of his customary mission packs but insisted on this personal thing.

Aya hesitated when he looked across the street at one of the cafes. He had nothing else to do, nowhere to go, his latest injury was still causing him bouts of pain, and hot tea seemed a good idea on this chill autumn morning.

Getting old, it flashed through his mind as he bumped into the tall stranger before he could step down the curb, and instinctively, his hands darted for the hilt of his new sword, hidden beneath the folds of his long black coat.

The man moved like a weasel, and before Aya knew, the barrel of a gun poked softly into his abdomen. "I wouldn't do this," a cool voice breathed into his ear, and he gasped with surprise.

"What-"

"Shush," the man said, patting Aya's back as though they were embracing.

Just like old friends, Aya thought, but he felt not even bitterness as the man finally let go, the gun gleaming at Aya from the inside of a brown leather jacket. He gave the man an all-over – expensive leather shoes, lanky limbs encased in impossibly tight blue jeans, tight black tee, freckled white skin, a bony longnosed face with a teethy grin and cold blue eyes that bored into his.

Aya could not suppress a gasp. "Schuldig?"

"Hi there. Nice to meet you too," Schuldig replied jovially.

Aya managed to school his expression into neutrality. "What have you done with your hair?" He raised his brows. "And why are you waylaying me?"

"Ahhh." Schuldig raked his thin fingers through a mass of short, fine chestnut hair. "Shame, innit? Terms of employment, I'd say."

"Red suits you better."

"Yeah, hell it does, but what can you do?"

"How would I know? Now if you'd be kind enough to piss off, I would like to have some tea."

Schuldig shrugged, unperturbed by the cranky tone. "You're just as assy as I remember. Look, I wanna go for some coffee and a joint myself, why don't you tag along?"

"I am not interested in company." Aya made to bystep him, but was caught firmly by the elbow, and before he could twist out of the grip or do anything else, the pale blue gaze sought his and the smile on pale lips thinned.

"You can't go there."

"Oh?" Aya had a sharp retort ready when he saw.

Short cropped bleach-blond hair. Long, muscular body clad in low-riding stonewashed blue denims, a few stains on his white, clingy tee, green apron slung sloppily about his hips. With bucket and rag, he moved between the small tables crammed against the side of the cafe to clean and tidy them.

Yohji. Aya gaped, swallowed hard, felt his knees go weak. Schuldig patted his back again. "Surprised?"

The blond stopped by a table with a couple of girls who were sipping iced milkshakes and flirting with him. He played along, smiling, laughing at their jokes and innuendos as he took a bit longer to straighten out their table – place the menu neatly into its holder, shift the vase with flowers – real ones, Aya noted numbly – and finally set down the bucket to jot down another order for them.

The girls eyed his backside when he bent to pick up the bucket, baring an expanse of caramel-coloured flesh at his lower back. They snickered as he stuffed the order pad into the front pocket of the apron, and he gave them a wink and laughed at their flushed faces as he walked back into the shop to get their order.

"C'mon," Schuldig said to Aya and tugged at his arm. "We can sit over there; it's the competition, but we'll have a nice view, and his place is busy anyway."

"His place?" Aya finally asked when they had settled inside the coffee bar Schuldig had pointed out.

"Yeah. His now," Schuldig grated out.

From where they sat, they could look out of the large shop window, and watch Yohji. The coming and going of customers, the way he had a smile and a plesantry for everyone, serving, cleaning up after them, stashing away payment in the front pocket of his apron. Easy. Yohji had lost none of his charm.

Warmth. Sunshine. Love. Yohji.

Aya felt something inside his chest clench, and he sucked in a sharp breath. He really had to have another word with the doctors. Perhaps he should have listened and not have discharged himself so soon from hospital. Maybe he needed another checkup and some more medicine to cure this nagging, dragging ache inside him that had grown worse over the years.

"What..." He shook his head and took a sip of the tepid tea they had been served. He swallowed hard, staring at the cup for a moment, before looking at the other cafe again. "What happened?"

"You mean, why did no one tell you sooner?" Schuldig supplied helpfully and lit a cigarette. He leaned back in his chair, long legs crossed at the ankles, and studied Aya who did not care, barely noticed because he was watching Yohji bringing a small tray set with mugs and cake to the two girls at the small table. He wore a small necklace of wooden beads that showed off his long, tanned neck, and he moved deftly but with the same sensuous sway to his body that Aya knew so well.

"He hasn't changed one bit, now has he?"

Aya turned his head to glare at Schuldig who sounded oddly wistful, and to his surprise, the young man eyed him carefully, his customary grin wiped off his face.

"No."

"But he doesn't remember a thing."

Aya stayed still.

"When we were scraped up after the Academy job," Schuldig said, his voice tensing, eyes narrowing through the veil of smoke, "he looked the worst. Bump to the head, yanno, with a few cracks to that hard scull of his... took forever to heal, and when he... I mean, when he came round, the doctors found that he couldn't remember a fig."

Aya closed his eyes.

"Zilch," Schuldig went on, voice brittle. "Nada. When you were located, you were about to conk out 'cos you'd bled so much... bleeding your life away while hugging a letterbox, how heroic... well, you are okay now for the looks of it."

"So are you."

"Yeah... sort of."

"And..."

Schuldig bit his lip and stared down at his hand that was busy tapping ash into the ashtray. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair. "Brad's unwell. Tells me that he's been telling me all along, the smartass."

"What?"

"They... folk like him – ah, forget it." Schuldig rubbed his eyes and lifted the cigarette for another deep drag as he turned to watch Yohji. Who just then emerged from the shop with a large bunch of cut flowers in his arm, to receive a dark-haired girl in a white coat with an embrace and a long, tender kiss.

"Doesn't it make you sick to watch?" Schuldig said, sounding jealous. "She was his nurse, and hell, they're married now, would you believe it, and he's going quite regularly to help out at the orphanage down the street when he's not busy with his shop.

"His... can you talk a bit more clearly?" Aya squeezed out.

"What part of 'his shop' don't you grasp, Abyssinian? He couldn't make head or tail of his life, but this girl managed to get him to start over. So he borrowed some funds – thanks, Mamoru-sama, for your altruism," he bowed in mock reverence, "and this shop happened to come up for sale – thanks again, Mamoru-sama – and the girl happened to chance upon the paper, open on the sales adverts, just when the table became available – thanks, Schuldig-san for arranging things so neatly. I'm still good at suggestive talk, yanno, and she was nice chatting to. Quite a bird, knows what she wants, and she wants Yohji, and for the looks of it, he is happy with that."

Silence.

"He's clean: no drugs, hardly any booze, no more whoring around. A prime example of prim and proper."

Yohji, always able to find contentment in small things. Ready and brave enough to accept life as it was, and appreciate what it would give. "He looks well," Aya finally managed.

"Yeah, some things never change. And he still has this thing for flowers."

Aya drew a slow, shallow breath. "And you?"

Schuldig shrugged. "I've been asked to hang around. Keep an eye and make sure he can get on with his life now."

Aya tore his gaze away from Yohji and his girl who were sitting down at one of the tables to talk and admire the flowers. "Huh?"

"It's my job. He's got me for a bodyguard, now how's that for a surprise?" Schuldig's grin was back, though less challenging and more smug. "He hasn't got a clue, but he won't get rid of his stalker. I like stalking him, he's such a pretty sight, and you never really appreciated this. You're still an idiot, Abyssinian, but that's your business. I have orders to keep his past away. Get me?"

"Orders..." Aya murmured.

"Yeah, yeah, orders, from our good boss who also paid our hospital bills in his endless generosity and was kind enough to retire good old Schuldig to this job 'cos good old Schuldig's poor old head is no good for anything else anymore. Man, Abyssinian, you make my brain hurt. You are past, so you stay away, right?"

Aya said nothing. He had trouble breathing around the lump in his throat. Omi had decided to let Yohji have his life back. Free of sin. Free of the burden of their cross. Innocence reclaimed. For however long it would last, and perhaps – if fate had mercy – he would never regain those memories of blood and darkness.

Aya breathed out sharply and stretched out his hand. "Give me a cigarette."

Schuldig slanted him a long glance, but complied.

"What about Crawford, then?" Aya asked through a lungful of smoke that curled from his lips and nostrils. The stuff reeked of pot. He did not care.

"You're a bit desperate, aren't you?"

"Schuldig!"

"Yeah." Schuldig played with the cigarette packet, setting it on edge, toppling it over onto the long side, then upside down, the other long side, and up again. A square wheel, hobbling back and forth over the grimy table before him. Finally he sighed, pushed out his lower lip and blew a long stream of smoke up into his fringe. "He's going blind, and he has dreams. Nasty stuff, every night, sometimes during the day too 'cos it's getting dark around him. I keep him on sedatives most of the time. They said, at... THAT place, that precogs must pay for their gift by losing sight of the present. I suppose that's what it means. He has visions, like some computer that's crammed with data but the processing sequence is scrambled. He once explained that's what they did: enhance his memory and capacity of analysis until they had created a human computer. Yanno, like those kits used for modelling scenarios, only with added gut feeling. That's how Brad's brain works, that's why there was never room for much else."

Aya idly swirled the tea in his mug. "And now?"

"Why're you asking?"

"What about you?"

"Me..." Schuldig shrugged, tried a laugh. "Well, what about me... I'm just going insane, I think, but that's nothing new... just you wait..."

"Stop that," Aya said flatly. "You said once that they stripped you bare and left you raw..."

"My mind... yeah, my mind. Made me empty for everyone else to project into me. I sense, and feel, and hear... now, with Brad being as he is, I can only feel him. It's always been like that. He was my shield. Now his shields are down, that's why I got none, but that's fine; I can still feel him."

"They really wrecked you."

"I guess... I'm taking stuff to keep it down. Numbing it. It's okay."

"Farfarello?"

Schuldig threw his head back and laughed. "He's gone normal. Like Yohji, happy ever after and stuff. Your dear Siberian is still stuck in prison, but I guess it's just a matter of time before Bombay-sama can arrange something unsuspicious to remedy that. And with Nagi watching over Bombay, our dear boss should be as safe as a baby."

Aya bit his lip, stabbed out his half-smoked joint, and settled his hands around the cooling mug of tea as he let his gaze stray across the road again. Yohji and the girl now held hands over the table and kissed. A soft, tender kiss, Yohji lifting his backside slightly off the chair and craning his neck to reach.

"Cute," Schuldig bit out, "what a fuckin' waste... before long, the man's gonna make little Yohji's, and then he'll be lost forever to the grind of nappychanging and repaying the mortgage. I really can't see why Bombay thinks this is a good idea."

"Because you are an ass," Aya said quietly, the mess of envy and pain in his chest settling into a wrenching sensation of loss. Acute. Devastating. Final.

Schuldig sniffed and lit yet another cigarette.

"Stop stinking out the place," Aya said, voice small and not entirely steady as it hit him how often he and Yohji had played out the same little scene.

Oddly enough, Schuldig obeyed. "Perhaps," he said after a moment, "I am an ass, and hell knows, I'd give anything to have Brad back to normal, bastard that he was. But he's dying on me."

"What about his promise?"

"That we would heal?" Schuldig pondered, then shook his head. "Well, I suppose he did what was possible. Bombay paid for the biotech data Brad had stashed away for our retirement, so we're okay for funds. My job pays fine and doesn't exactly kill me." He laughed as if he had cracked a great joke. "Look at it that way, Abyssinian: we all got what we asked for – I have Brad and Yohji, Brad finally has a home, Yohji's got someone ready to set up a family with him. Siberian's playing soccer in a safe place, our dear Far has time to read and do penance, Bombay's got his empire, and Nagi... well, I think the brat's quite happy with his job." He gave Aya a sly look, tinged with a hint of the old Schuldig. "And you, Abyssinian, are rid of Kudoh for good."

"Hai," Aya hissed, "as much as you are free of Crawford now that he cannot dominate you any longer."

Schuldig sagged a little. "Well done, Abyssinian, really, well done, good kitten, nice claws... I tried, but the stupid doctors don't know what's wrong, I can't tell them, and even if they figured something, they couldn't help. He won't eat for days on end. He's turned white and looks like some skeleton." He pushed back his chair and suddenly laughed. "But hey, I still have him, so I better stop wailing. C'mon now, let's go."

"Are you going to play escort for me?"

"Orders, Abyssinian, orders, and I can't afford to disgruntle my employer."

They stepped outside just as Yohji and his girl rose and he reached for her coat to adjust it around her shoulders. She dropped her bag and bent to get it, but he was quicker, and when he came up again, his glance slipped over the two men who slowly walked along the opposite side.

Lingered on Aya's dark red braid, watched as Aya turned slightly to look out for cars before crossing the road, and their eyes briefly met.

Aya saw those green eyes narrow a little as if puzzled, the smile waver, the brow furrow as Yohji straightened and handed the bag to his girl, but then she said something, and Yohji tore away, bent his head down to her so she could nuzzle his ear, and then he laughed brightly.

He looked happy.

And Schuldig did not need to prompt Aya to walk away briskly.

Schuldig stayed hard on his heels. "Don't go there again," he grouched even as Aya's mobile phone bleeped in his pocket.

Aya ignored him and picked up the call. "Ah, Mamoru-san. Hai, I have. No." He listened for some time, then he nodded. "I am at your disposal should you so wish. Hai."

When he flipped the phone shut, Schuldig looked at him with bitter blue eyes. "Stay clear, hear me? He isn't yours any longer, and you didn't deserve him anyway, you sucker. Now, piss off before you rake up all the old shit again for him."

He turned and stalked off.

Aya stared after him for a moment, before slowly walking into the opposite direction.

His mind was a sea of pain.

There was no way back for him. No way to live without becoming a target himself – their kind of profession came with drawbacks, one of them the lack of suitable alternatives should they have enough of their work. And now he had truly lost everything.

He briefly pressed a hand over his chest and pressed down hard. Crypton Brand, Omi had said in his cool, polite voice, that's the new mission code; I heard that Ken is being considered for an early discharge, due to his exemplary conduct. We must meet soon...

Aya did not argue.

For they were the hunters of darkness.

And like their prey, they had no tomorrow.

**xxx **

The End

**Author's note:  
**

Hi, RubyMoon et al,

This was meant to be a one-shot simply because my fav character – Yohji forever! – has gone missing from Side B, therefore I do not know the series that well. This story is part of my loose arc of WK stories around Kapitel, the OAVs, Dramatic Precious and Gluhen OAV and series, which I do not necessarily write or publish in order. If you feel like writing a continuation to this one, go ahead – just let me know because I'd like to read more about Side B!

Cheers

LH


End file.
